January 26, 2009

January 26, 2009 Happy Monday everyone! Also Happy New Year! Please consider this blog message as your Seasons Greetings message! Our best wishes to all for 2009 and beyond! We ended 2008 in Newburgh—celebrating the Holidays with family. A leaky pipe upstairs caused a waterfall in our living room on Christmas Eve—our faux 'pet dog', Faux found it fascinating; everyone else just accepted that buckets and towels were the latest decorations. And a good time was had by all! Our January 9th departure from NY was later than we'd planned,(see above) but we managed to sneak out between blizzards, and drove back to Ft. Lauderdale to reclaim the boat. Arrived at Marilyn's on Friday, January 16, having spent several days in Charleston planning a Mangelsdorf Cousin's reunion (scheduled for April) with a quick side trip to brother Ted M's home in Aiken, SC. The boat was as we left it. Sadly, that meant that the water maker and the air conditioner were not repaired. Another week of—well, whatever it is that we do. Watching the inauguration was very exciting, and I especially enjoyed—and was moved by—seeing Rep. John Lewis and Pete Seeger, both of whom have been featured speakers at the Newburgh MLK Celebration I've participated in for the last 15 years. What a message to the world that this transition could take place with so many people present—peacefully. As we sing to open the Celebration, “Let there be peace on earth—and let it begin with me”. May it be so. Again it was Friday when we cast off the lines and pulled away from the dock at Ft. Royal Isle in Ft. Lauderdale. Marilyn, our 'dockmistress/hostess' who grew up, as did I, in Aberdeen, SD, provided a wonderful place for us to dock and dine and work and relax and visit and tour and shop and meet her delightful daughter Pam, and, well, you get the idea. The car (were you wondering?) is in long term parking at the FtL airport awaiting visits, in turn, from Geoff, Linda and Molly, and will be driven back to NY next month. We'd written down a really low fuel price on the way south back in December, and so headed north to take advantage. Must've been a fluke, as phone calls revealed that at $2.71/gallon, Bahia Mar was only 2 cents a gallon more, so we reversed course and headed for the hangout of Travis McGee. Sure enough, the plaque is there at the home of the BUSTED FLUSH. Took me back to the 70's and the many nights I'd sit up very very late to finish one of the novels with a color in the title. Next stop was to explore the New River. We'd had dinner in the neighborhood of the Riverwalk—a wonderfully done downtown restoration--with Marilyn, and decided to get the water view as well. Stayed two nights as we found it to be a hoot! Where do all these people come from? There was an ongoing stream of tour boats, water taxis, pedestrians, party groups, even a wedding! We took a dinghy ride to the end of the North fork of the river, investigated the condos along the Riverwalk, confirmed that we're very happy with our NY Vacation Home, and generally enjoyed the stay. Yesterday we headed south once more, and tonight are tied up at the Miami Marina in South Beach. Coming through the Miami Port and Harbor on Sunday afternoon was exciting. There were recreational boats of all sizes, including the mosquito-like Jet Skis, but most impressive were the 6-7 big big boats carrying the 'other cruisers'. The newspapers say that there are real bargains for Carribbean Cruises in this economy,and there were certainly a lot of folks on their way! The Coast Guard was there as well, and they made sure we understood--not so much what WAS our route, as what area was most definitely NOT on our route. So we dodged around Dodge Island and passed Fisher Island and with Brandon's help looping lines over tall pilings off the bow, we tucked into our slip. South Beach was all we expected. A fishing tournament and the Marathon (and 1/2 Marathon) were just ending, and the partying went on well into the night. On Monday we walked a lot among the art deco buildings and fascinating mix of people, and discovered our old friend the Circulator Bus--25 cents a ride here. Found a great Ace Hardware store and have a souvenier Bread Knife to slice our home made bread. Fun. The evening was gorgeous and around midnite we went for a dock walk. Met another couple doing the same, and chatted with them until 2:30 am. More fun. So here we are on Tuesday, and it's post time (if the internet holds here in Biscayne Bay). See you next week.... Be well and enjoy! Linda and Fred South Beach, FL .